


Drawings

by timeladyleo



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Gen, MJN Air Is A Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:50:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4793405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeladyleo/pseuds/timeladyleo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day on standby, so boredom leads to Douglas showing off one of his many talents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drawings

**Author's Note:**

> Written ages and ages ago, I think inspired at least in part by Douglas' page in the A-Z boxset booklet.

One of the many, many things Douglas was very, very good at was drawing. He was no artist, as he kept telling Martin, but that didn't mean he couldn’t create a rather good sketch of a scene, or face. Of course, after Martin had seen a rather exaggerated version of his own face, he had angrily demanded a more faithful drawing. Douglas hadn’t intended for Martin to see it, but the opportunity to draw his captain was not one he was going to miss. 

They were all on standby, waiting. Martin had gone off to read some manuals or talk to the plane, or whatever it was he did for fun. Arthur was busy. Doing what, exactly, Douglas couldn’t tell, but it looked like it involved a pack of cards, a somewhat broken action figure and a mug. Deciding it was best to ignore all of this, Carolyn was engrossed in a book, not noticing that her reading glasses were very slowly slipping down her nose. 

Meanwhile, Douglas had begun doodling on a piece of paper he had found lying on the desk. It began as some random shapes, but soon became a room. Not paying proper attention to what he was doing, he found himself sketching the figures of Arthur and Carolyn in, roughly attempting to capture the scene in the portacabin. He looked down for a moment to see what he had drawn. With a tiny nod, he thought that it wasn’t bad, and that seeing as he had nothing better to do, he might as well finish it. 

Arthur was in the background, which was where Douglas started. He tried to draw the thing Arthur was making as best he could, drawing the action figure in the mug and the cards surrounding it. Quite a bit of it was guesswork, but he was pleased at how it turned out. Capturing Arthur, he imagined, would be the tricky part. In the end, after some internal deliberation, he decided to draw him leaning over, concentrating in the way only Arthur could, managing to look both excited and like he was performing incredibly complex surgery.

Hair was something Douglas had always struggled to draw with accuracy, so it was annoying that Arthur had so much of it. Douglas tried several times, rubbing out the lines crossly before deciding that he would just give Arthur enough of a fringe to cover the eye that he had ruined by accident. 

He paused before starting to draw Carolyn. Arthur would be happy to see himself drawn at all, but he knew that Carolyn would be a lot harsher in her judgment if she saw it. Still, he had drawn the rest of the picture realistically, so he figured that it would be best to try and draw her as true to life as possible. Fortunately, she was staying still, unlike Arthur who had been moving back and forth while creating his card kingdom, so it was far easier to use her as a reference.

It was an hour and a half before the phone rang. Arthur yelped in surprise, knocking down the tower he had spent the better part of an hour building up. Both Douglas and Carolyn reacted in surprise too, but not quite as physically as Arthur, who having recovered had begun to construct his tower all over again. Douglas had lifted his pencil the second he had heard the phone rather than drawing a line through the middle, leaving the picture undamaged. Carolyn had looked up straight away and sighed, putting down her book after carefully replacing the bookmark. As she reached for the phone, she deliberately pushed her glasses back up her nose. 

“Hello, MJN Air?” As Carolyn answered the phone, Martin returned, bursting through the door with a grimace. 

“Hi Skip! What’s the matter?” Arthur beamed, looking up from his new card tower. Martin blinked, embarrassment flooding through his cheeks as he straightened himself up. Douglas smiled to himself, returning to his drawing to add the perfect finishing touch. 

“Oh, um, nothing, I just- tripped.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking at the floor as his blush deepened, pretending he hadn't fallen through the door. Then he looked over to Douglas who was scribbling intently. “Douglas, what are you doing?”

Douglas said nothing, continuing to add the final parts of Martin’s features to the figure he had posed in the doorway. Martin walked over to look at what it was. Upon seeing the drawing, he folded his arms and tilted his head as though he couldn’t quite decide what he thought of it. “I thought you said you weren’t an artist.” 

At this point, Arthur got up to have a look at what was going on. “Wow, Douglas, that’s brilliant! You’re really good at drawing!” 

Douglas smiled, accepting the compliment with a knowing nod. He stifled a laugh as Arthur asked “What is Skip doing?” Martin looked away again, blushing furiously. 

“The Captain is standing and looking cross, Arthur, as usual. Probably talking about some boring flight manuals and procedures.” Martin squeaked indignantly and Douglas chuckled. It was far too easy to wind him up. 

Carolyn set down the phone and went over to see what all the fuss was about. She looked down at the picture, then at Douglas, who smiled broadly. With an almost impressed _hmph_ , she walked back towards her desk, telling the three others that they needed to be ready to take off within the hour. 

Before they did, Douglas added some finishing touches to the picture, and Arthur discovered some blu-tack so they could stick it to the wall.


End file.
